Reflection of the sun
by dogbertcarroll
Summary: Oz's attempt to leave Willow after Veruca's death doesn't go as planned.
1. Reflection of the sun

Disclaimer: If you think I own these characters I have a bridge to sell you and possibly even some beach front property. It's another Xandercentric fic with W/O pairing.

Oz ran, not fast, not gracefully, but he ran all the same.

His clothes had been shredded until only his pants remained and his skin was covered in so many cuts and bruises that his much abused lycanthrope healing factor was having a hard time keeping up.

Stumbling on a root he tumbled down the hill side, trying desperately not to hit any trees on the way down. Staggering to his feet he continued to run.

Two full moons…

He'd been on the run for weeks…months...years? Two full moons that he knew of had passed and even the wolf had been unable to deal with what was following him.

Bits and pieces of the battles between the two leaked into his exhausted mind.

**#flash#**

_A grunt of satisfaction, as a much smaller figure was slammed through a half rotted tree in a swamp, only to watch in shock as the mud covered figure shook off the blow and came back at him faster and harder then expected. Mud and blood completely covered the two figures, before the wolf finally had enough and ran._

**#flash#**

_A grunt of pain as he feels his ribs buckle. The small human had hit him much harder then anything that size should be able to. A harsh humorless barking laugh, that he was learning to fear, ringing in his ears as he growled back at it wondering why it wouldn't stop chasing him. He had left it's territory long ago…_

**#flash#**

_Running on all fours, trying to put as much distance between himself and his pursuer as possible, before the sun rose and he was forced to run on only two slow feet, rather then the faster four he had at the moment. Weary beyond all reason, he ran on. Day and night alike had run together into one long exhausting twilight that he struggled through._

**#flash#**

_His teeth tearing into a rabbit, caught on the fly as he ran, only to realize that he was very much human at the time. Eating it raw anyway as he stumbled through a nameless forest with hunger gnawing at his belly. That harsh barking laugh echoing around him, driving him on._

Glancing up at the sky, he could tell the moon would soon rise, allowing him to gain some space from… the other. It was stronger and faster then him in close combat, but he ran much faster then it did. Hopefully he'd manage to get enough space to catch his breath and maybe another rabbit.

Following the hint of moisture in the air he found a spring of fresh water that he practically dove into. The cold water felt good on his cuts and bruises, and tasted great to someone panting with thirst. Splashing himself with it he tried to wash off some of the dirt he'd gotten fallen down the hill and hopefully help mute his scent a bit.

The glow of the full moon slowly rising was a welcome sight. The realization that he was in a small box canyon and that there was someone blocking the only way out was not. He didn't even have to look to know who it was. He was more then close enough to smell.

"Xander."

Oz's voice was as atonal as usual, but the rising moon and near total exhaustion gave it a certain gravely quality.

"I told you what I would do if you hurt her."

The ever present rage that had characterized his voice and his harsh barking laugh over the last few weeks was strangely absent, but the words held a grim finality that sent shivers down Oz's spine.

"It was for the best."

"Hurting Willow is never _'for the best'_." A little of the rage was back, but it was a weak sister compared to what he had faced these last few weeks(months?).

"Better hurt then dead."

"Do you really think the wolf was trying to kill her?"

"It attacked her!"

Xander stood silently for a moment, just staring at him before asking.

"Why?"

"Because it wanted to kill her."

Xander crouched down, resting on his heels. His clothes had come through in much better condition then Oz's, so the tattered remnants of his shirt swaying in the breeze gave Oz something to concentrate on rather then looking into his slightly glowing green eyes.

"Do you really believe that?"

"Why else would it attack her?"

"You're the wolf, ask yourself that question."

"I am not…"

Oz's voice trailed off uncertainly as the events of the last few weeks/months passed through his mind. Given no choice and pushed to extremes the two sides of himself had to cooperate just to survive.

"I am the wolf."

The shock in his voice rapidly gave way to depression.

"I wanted to kill her?"

Xander snarled slightly before replying, scorn dripping from every syllable.

"Then why would you have killed Veruca? Think, damn it!"

Oz's eyes lost focus as he remembered.

"She was in danger. If she was more like me she would be able to protect herself better."

Oz's moment of reverie was broken as Xander spoke up.

"Every time you attacked one of us you went for the wound, not the kill. Anyone with half a brain could see what was going on. Unfortunately we apparently lent the one Scooby brain cell out and forgot to get it back. I'm not suppose to be the brains of our outfit, I'm the clown!"

The snarl he ended the sentence with drew a sarcastic laugh from Oz..

"So being chased through god knows where, with the repeating mantra of 'Can't stop, Clown will eat me.' echoing through my head, is just part of the quirky sense of humor of our group?"

Xander snickered.

"Nope. This was just my secondary role of Mr. Fixit for the group."

Oz's eyes widen and he moved back.

"You're going to fix me?"

The way his hands were protecting his crotch screamed his thoughts of what Fix meant to the animal side of the equation.

Xander grinned evilly.

"Yep."

The normally stoic lycanthrope whimpered and crouched lower in the water.

Xander snickered once more.

"Relax doggy, you've already been fixed."

Oz winced when an exploratory squeeze, to check the condition of his equipment, was just a trifle too firm.

"That's not what I meant when I said fixed."

"It's not?"

Xander sighed tiredly, falling to his knees as the glow slowly faded from his eyes.

"Look up."

Oz glanced at the sky and froze starring at the newly risen full moon.

"Think of it as 10 years of meditating and trying to find yourself boiled down into a couple of weeks of pure hell. Life and death struggles tend to blow away the bullshit. You are you, even when you're the wolf. I just gave you no choice but to accept that, without a lot of navel gazing."

"How?"

Xander shrugged.

"Something hellmouthy that happened to me long before you joined the Scoobs. It's not something any of us like to think about and not something I'd choose to use, but something had to be done and I have a unique… insight into your condition. Being any type of were or something similar is all tied up in survival instincts. If the girls ask just claim we went hunting a shaman who showed you what to do. Nothing that happened goes beyond the two of us, ok?"

Oz simply nodded as he climbed out of the water and gave an exhausted Xander a hand up.

"Van?"

"About a mile away. I've been herding you back here for the last week. I figured seeing a full moon would convince you, plus you have to admit it was kinda cool."

Throwing one of Xander's arms over his shoulders, when Xander began to stumble, Oz helped him walk in the indicated direction.

"Very dramatic."

"How did you manage to keep your pants through all the changes?"

"Check it. You know how the hulk always ended up in nothing but a pair of Levis?"

"I always did wonder about that. I just figured it was part of the comic code that the hero wasn't allowed to moon everyone."

Oz shrugged as he helped a staggering Xander up the hillside.

"I figured a couple of inches of spandex sewn into the seams would work. It's a lot easier to find your way home when you have pants."

"Why are they purple?"

"Tradition."

"Ahhhh. Makes perfect sense."

The two fell silent as they concentrated on getting to the van, with Oz practically carrying an exhausted Xander.

**At the Van**

"You came back and moved my van to a campsite?"

"Best place to put it. Anyone seeing it will figure you're off hiking, besides if I had left it on the side of the road it would've been towed by now."

"Point."

Safely dressed in some non-shredded clothes and having rested a little, as well as having consumed massive amounts of coke and twinkies, Oz finally spoke up about what Xander knew had to be bothering him.

"So you have no real problems with all of us growing fur?"

Xander simply shrugged.

"Buffy is immune, being as how she is the slayer and all, and I can't be infected by something weaker then what I already have and no I'm not going to explain. I keep it locked down most of time cause it can't play well with others. I only let it out for this because it was something we could both understand. Most of the time we can't understand each other, too alien."

Silence fell between the two as the van pulled out of the campsite and headed back towards Sunnydale.

"So you don't mind Willow getting furry?"

"Kinda inevitable."

"How do you figure?"

"Lycanthropy is a sexually transmitted disease."


	2. Questions and Answers

An awkward silence fell between the two, as Oz drove back to SDU, each deep in thought.

Xander looked about half dead and was still nursing at a 2 liter bottle of Coke like it held the secret to eternal life, instead of just high levels of caffeine and sugar. If anyone had ever bothered to ask him what the water from the Holy Grail tasted like, he would have assured them that it would have tasted similar.

"So by sexually transmitted you mean…" Oz's voice trailed off.

Xander sighed, while neither one of them particularly wanted to have this conversation, it needed to be done. "Any type of nibbling near the full moon can get someone furry. Think of it like Herpes…"

Oz's single raised eyebrow spoke volumes about his opinion on that comparison.

"Or not." Xander tried again "OK, let's get a little technical then. When it's that time of the month for you.."

Oz's eyebrow put in a return appearance.

Xander chuckled "Should we go back to the Herpes comparison?"

Oz made a show of reaching up and pushing his eyebrow back down, never taking his eyes off the road.

"Near the full moon your body goes through changes during the day as well as the night. Your teeth are a bit more fangy and you get the whole uni-brow thing going on. At least you're suppose to. I never noticed it happening with you." Xander took a moment to look at the lycanthrope curiously.

"I wax." Oz commented dryly.

"OK, and on that TMI note, let me point out something. When your baby cousin bit you, was he in wolf form?"

"No he wasn't." Oz's eyes lost focus for a second, as he reflected on his tiny cousin biting him; he'd barely had teeth at that point, much less hair.

Xander smiled tiredly, "And that, my friend, is how most Weres get infected. It's only in horror movies and bad fanfics that they actually get bitten by a fully transformed Were and get away without getting either eaten or mortally chewed. So you can rest assured that if you are getting frisky with one of the fur set, then you will become one of the fur set. It's the reason behind all those medieval laws about not having sex during that time of the month."

"And you didn't think to tell us this before now?" Oz's voice didn't hold even a hint of accusation, just a slight curiosity.

"I thought you guys knew all this stuff. You read all the books Gile's had about werewolves, right?" Xander burped loudly before taking another swig from his precious life giving two liter bottle.

Oz nodded slowly, running the list of books he and Willow had read, looking for a cure or some kind of control over his curse, through his head, "I don't think we missed any. We've gone through his entire library several times and I don't recall anything covering that topic."

"Well it's not stated straight out. It's just kinda' obvious to anyone whose read the books and been forced to sit through a feminine empowerment lecture by his best female buds, who really know how to punish a guy for a few simple and completely innocent comments by the way, made while watching Boobwatch. I mean Baywatch. It's not like they didn't make some inappropriate comments themselves about the gay actors on that show and yes they **are** gay. No straight man spends that much time and effort on looking good." Xander started to trail off muttering something Oz didn't quite catch about dead guys wearing leather and too much hair gel.

"Xander, focus." Oz said forcefully. As much as he was actually interested in Xander's story, it sounded like it was a doozy and had some decent blackmail potential, he was more concerned that his girlfriend was going to become a bitch, literally.

"Huh? Oh, sorry man. Anyway they went into all the crap about how badly women were treated throughout history and how sex during a woman's period was verboten. If you combined that info with Mrs. Langford's Sex Ed class…"

Both young men shivered in remembrance of that particular nightmare.

"That class completely killed my sex drive… for the rest of the day." Oz said bluntly, with a haunted look in his eyes.

Xander sighed mournfully, "I know exactly what you mean. I couldn't even think about sex til' lunchtime."

"Lunchtime?" Oz glanced over at his Twinkie addicted friend incredulously.

"Girl's swim team tryouts." Xander answered happily, visions of bikini clad vixens dancing in his head.

"Anyway…" Oz said attempting to drag Xander back to topic.

"Anyway, if you remember her speech on herpes transmission factors on college campuses, it all falls together."

Oz nodded to himself, "Well when you put it like that then it does makes sense. A bit of a leap, but it fits."

Xander just stared at him incredulously, "Are you trying to say that the two, highest scoring, brainiest, people I know didn't see the obvious connection?"

The laconic lycanthrope replied, "I just test well and Willow is not exactly big with the common sense. Do you remember when you had to get the bolt cutters to cut us loose from…"

"Stop! I lived through that story once. I don't want to hear it again, ever. Willow and sex do not go together in my mind." Xander covered his ears and hummed for a minute, rocking back and forth in his seat, until he was sure Oz had stopped speaking.

"Common sense is rarely common." Oz quoted softly.

Xander just shrugged, unsure of how he was supposed to respond to that.

"I know the topic of Willow and sex is uncomfortable for you and I have to admit I'm not exactly thrilled to be talking to you about it either, but we never did clear the air about the fluke."

Both men shifted uncomfortably for a moment before Xander sighed and began to speak. "Fortunately there was no sex involved, just some kissing, mild fondling at worst. I would have thought you'd have talked to Wills about this." Xander stared out the window, watching the trees flow past.

"Well, we kinda did, but between the crying and the patented Willow babble, I didn't understand one word in five she said. I eventually just forgave her to get her to stop crying. I knew she was sorry for her part in it and bringing it up again would just start the crying again, so I let it be."

Xander nodded to himself absently, taking a swig of coke before speaking. "Do you know how many love spells and other weird hellmouthy things we've been exposed to during high school?"

Oz frowned slightly. "So the Hellmouth was responsible?"

Xander shook his head. "Yes and no. If it were just the Hellmouth we could have handled it, but it wasn't just that. I think we were both afraid we were drifting apart. Here we were seniors in high school with our own designated snuggle partners and spending less and less time together, where before It'd always been just the three of us growing up."

"Three?"

"Yep, Me, Willow, and Jessie." Xander said sadly.

Oz cocked his head to the side, glancing over at his passenger. "I've heard the name mentioned a couple of times, but she hasn't said much about him. Did he move?"

"I staked him during out freshman year. Darla, Angel's sire, turned him as bait for Buffy during the Harvest.

I didn't know enough about vamps… well I knew, but I didn't know. You know what I mean?"

Oz nodded sadly. "Yeah, I get you."

"So there I am facing the closest thing to a brother I'll ever have and he's trying to convince me that being a vampire is the greatest thing in the world and how me and Willow have to join him…" Xander's voice trailed off into silence.

"And?" Oz knew they were getting off topic, but this sounded important.

"And I had my stake up, to keep him away from me, when the crowd shifted and Cordy pushed him into me. I almost let go, but I remembered what he said about draining Wills, so I just gripped it tighter and pointed it in the right direction. The last sight I had of my brother was a look of shock and betrayal."

"You know that wasn't him, right?"

Xander sighed. "Not completely him, no."

"Completely?" Oz took his eyes off the road briefly to give Xander a confused look.

His fellow Scooby just chuckled and took another swig, from his almost empty bottle, before replying. "Not completely. The demon twists what's left, but there is a… part of the person left. Did you ever wonder why so few demon hunters are ever turned? Why only master vampires and those with access to some high powered witchery even attempt it?"

"Not really. All the vamps we've run into seem determined to turn us."

"That's cause you've only paid attention to the Big Bads. The fledges and the rest of the minion types, are too stupid to know any better and usually end up dust while trying to kill us. The Big Bads are all high powered, so it's a different story with them. They used a lot of power to turn Kendra, but she wasn't much more effective then any master vamp. You'd think being a slayer would get you some big bonus, but really all it does is guarantee that she'll be a master. The magic wasn't to help turn her, it was to help control how she was turned. If had been turned without any major mojo being involved she would have become a Blood Drinker."

Oz just nodded. "Well, yeah. Vamp."

Xander shook his head. "Not just a vamp, a Blood Drinker."

"I thought they were basically the same thing."

"Nah, vampires feed on humans. Blood Drinkers feed on vampires and demons."

"Seriously?" Oz was stunned enough that a little of his shock was actually apparent in his voice.

"Yep. The demon takes over your body and distorts what you are, twisting it as much as possible, but some of the core traits remain, so if you're mission in life is to jam a stake up the boogeyman's ass…" Xander's voice trailed off, leaving the young lycanthrope to make his own conclusions.

"Then the demon that takes your place picks up the vocals." Oz relaxed and went back to watching the road.

"Got it in one. It's still a demon, don't get me wrong, but it's goal isn't killing humans. It usually doesn't care if they die, if they get in the way, but they aren't really on the menu anymore."

"How come I've never heard of it?"

Xander shrugged. "It's all in the watcher's diaries. They don't come straight out and say it, but it's plain to see. The only mention of Blood Drinkers is either of a vamp killing other demons or one vamp insulting another. They're almost always confirmed White Hats who've been turned. The demon that takes their place grabs a hold of their hate and what they consider prey and… picks up the vocals."

Oz nodded "And back to the topic at hand."

Xander nursed on his bottle for a moment before continuing. "So although he wasn't Jessie, he thought he was Jessie and trusted me, and I killed him."

"Harsh, but it had to be done."

Xander nodded and continued his tale. "There was just the three of us against the world, or against the popular kids anyway. I was a world class goofball, Willow was a brain, and Jessie was the biggest horn dog to ever grace God's green earth."

Xander snickered for a moment before speaking again. "Jessie's parents paid little attention to him, him being the youngest child of five. Willow's parental units mostly treated her like a sociology experiment, when they weren't neglecting her and my parents…" Xander's voice trailed off for a moment before he finished bitterly "…I would have paid good money to be neglected by."

He frowned for a moment. "Anyway, it all started pretty closely to the Band Candy incident. We went from feeling like family to… something else. It was a quick change and pretty damn strong. If something like this was going to happen naturally, it should have happened years ago. That should have tripped some flashing red lights for the both of us, but we'd been drifting apart lately and so rather then do the intelligent thing and talk to Giles, we clung to each other. For most of my life, Willow and Jessie were all I had and vice versa. The thought of losing Willow…"

"So…"

"So eventually we both had to admit something was up. I thought we could work it out between the two of us without involving anyone and Willow thought she could use her mojo to fix it. I'm not a real big fan of fixing your love life through magic, for obvious reasons, so we were arguing about it when Bleachboy showed up and kidnapped us."

Oz waited patiently as Xander fell silent and searched the back of the van for another two-liter bottle of caffeine and sugar. He knew Xander would get to the point eventually and all the little side trips would make sense. Well, most of them anyway.

Xander buckled himself back into the front seat and took a long pull off his new source of life giving fluid, before starting once more. "I figured we were goners. Love spells never work like they're suppose to and when Willow starts moving with the mojo things usually get pretty bizarre. Even if she did manage to make a love spell work on a vampire, there was no guarantee that we were getting out of there alive. If I had been healthy I might have gambled on distracting, Spike long enough for Willow to escape, but I was seeing triple and I had a whole lotta lumps, so I came up with a new plan."

Oz almost winced. Xander's plans… well it wasn't that they didn't work, the Judge and the Mayor knew how well they worked, it was just that his plans usually involved high explosives, or at least the most memorable ones did. His knuckles whitened on the wheel as the bit abought Blood drinkers came to mind. "You were planning on getting turned."

Xander nodded. "I was planning on getting turned. Spike was drunk and a Blood Drinker could have taken him out easily in that condition. The only real problem I had was how to make the demon with my face protect Willow."

Oz shuddered a bit, but kept the horror he was feeling out of his voice. "Picks up the vocals."

He could hear the grin in Xander's voice. "Yep, I needed something the demon would understand and sing along with once everything was said and done. I hate vampires with a passion, so becoming a BD was in the cards, but lust, something the demon could understand, and my memories of her would keep him protecting her long after my echo had faded and since I consider sex between the living and the dead to be abought the most disgusting thing you can do, other then going on one of those reality shows, she was safe from him becoming stalker boy as well."

"You were willing to…" Oz trailed off, the idea of Xander willingly becoming a vamp was nearly incomprehensible.

Xander's hatred of vamps could be very frightening at times. Just a couple of months ago a vamp had managed to backhand Dawn to the ground and Xander had torn into it with such single minded ferocity that Buffy had, had to pull him off so they could stake it. Staking it had been a mercy at that point. The vampire was a bloody mess; both it's eyes had been gouged out and its jaw broken, it's throat had been crushed and from the looks of it, half it's ribs had been broken. The only person who hadn't been scared was Dawn, who had the queerest little smile on her face.

"There are many people I'd give my life to protect, but there are only a handful I'd give my soul as well."

"So this list… all female?" Oz asked curiously.

"Nah, one or two guys may have been penciled in." Xander glanced over at Oz pointedly.

"If you're ever in that situation with Willow again…" Oz's voice was tight and his features could have been carved from stone, for all the emotion he showed.

"Yeah?" Xander asked nervously as the tension level in the van began to rise.

"Rub the small of her back, while nibbling on the side of her neck." Oz instructed carefully, "She'll melt."

"Gotcha." Xander replied as the atmosphere in the van became a bit friendlier.

He was in the middle of taking a big swig from his bottle when Oz made his next comment. "Works on me too. Just in case."

Xander sprayed Coke all over the dash, while the normally sedate werewolf laughed so hard tears were coming out of his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Leading a Horse to Water**

Xander quickly changed into some fresh clothes from a duffle bag he'd stashed in the back of Oz's Van before quickly switching places with Oz so he could change himself.

"So, how long have we been gone," Oz asked as he pulled a fresh shirt on over his head.

"About two months," Xander replied.

"Ouch. I can't imagine Anya taking your being gone for that long well."

"Actually, she kinda did - she broke up with me."

"That's taking it well?"

"Well, as in, no veiny-vengeance. She said I wasn't selfish enough for her."

"Not selfish enough?" Oz repeated, finding Anya's reasoning more than a bit confusing.

"Yep, she said that part of being human was being selfish; but I was far too unselfish for her needs. According to her, the kind of guy she wants was someone who was selfish enough to want to make a lot of money to provide for his children which she wouldn't hold it against me because I was probably going to die to make the world safe for whatever children she had."

"Ouch."

"Nah, it really wasn't all that bad and the eight hours of break up sex was surprisingly good."

"Eight hours? I'm surprised you were able to walk, much less track me down the next day."

"The wolf doesn't give you a huge boost?"

"Four hours max, and even then he sleeps through the full moon afterwards. The spirit may be willing..."

"But the flesh is spongey and bruised," Xander finished with a grin.

"So your wolflike adventure left you with godlike stamina?"

"No... Well, not entirely. There was also the swim team incident, and you know those emails you always get?"

"I don't smoke and I'm very secure about my breast size," Oz replied.

Xander snickered. "Well I was laughing at one of them that claimed outrageous things when Anya saw it and said she knew of a demon that could actually deliver."

"You sold your soul to become John Holmes?" Oz guessed.

"No way! I wouldn't sell my soul to become John Holmes. Ron Jeremy… maybe. Anyway I still have my soul. I had to pay him in cheese."

"Cheese?"

"Yes, cheese. I bought out two deli's and had to sacrifice an uncooked egg."

"That's all? Some cheese and an uncooked egg?"

"Well the summoning requires an egg, a small bit of wood, and 7ccs of mouse blood. And he charges 150 pounds of assorted cheeses for the complete enhancement package."

Oz remained quiet for a moment. "You don't happen to remember..."

"I have everything written down, including the price of various packages in case I had some guy friend who was interested. I'll give you a copy later."

"Thanks, not that it's needed..."

"Say no more; remember I bought a hundred and fifty pounds of cheese here."

Oz nodded and they both fell into a companionable silence that lasted until they pulled into the UC Sunnydale parking lot.

Getting out of the van they were both surprised to find an equally surprised Angel climbing out of a black Cadillac.

"What're you two doing here?" Angel asked.

"We live here," Oz replied.

"In the area anyway," Xander muttered, "and didn't you move?"

"Yeah but," Angel began only to be interrupted by Wesley, who'd gotten out of the car where he'd been quietly reading a heavy tome.

"There's a prophecy," he announced without even raising his eyes from what he was reading.

Xander groaned. "What is it?"

"The many eyed face of R'hale shall quail and fall at the sight of the child of the ever hungry something in the Dale of the Sun."

"We figure ever hungry could mean vampires," Angel explained, "Dale of the Sun would be Sunnydale."

"Could mean werewolf," Oz offered.

Xander's stomach growled. "Could mean my stomach. Let's cover all the bases and go as a group."

Angel sighed but didn't disagree. "I hope you brought your own weapons, I didn't bring any extras."

"I got a spare sword I can loan you," Xander told Oz as he climbed back into the van, digging into his duffle bag and returning with a pair of short swords and a piece of paper.

Oz examined the paper with interest, before folding it up and putting it in his wallet.

Wesley finally looked up from his book and winced. "Mr Harris, how did you ever manage to sneak up on anything wearing shirts like that?"

Xander looked down at the nearly fluorescent Hawaiian shirt he was wearing. "I only wear my Hawaiian shirts when I either run out of clean laundry or I'm playing bait. Besides I happen to like this one, it's called Taiwanese Sunset."

Whatever Wesley was going to respond with was forgotten as screams rent the night air.

"Buffy was going to meet us in the park!" Angel exclaimed, before the group took to their heels and sprinted to the small park across from the student parking section.

The four quickly came upon the source of the screams in the center of the small park.

Willow and Tara were hiding behind Giles as Dawn and Buffy hid behind Spike and Riley.

The reason for their screams was equally apparent; R'hale didn't just have many eyes... He also had a lot of tentacles.

Quite frankly Xander was glad none of them were Japanese schoolgirls.

Upon sighting the four the massive demon lord let off a scream that wasn't that far removed from that of the girls and curled up into a ball withdrawing all its questing tentacles and compressing itself further and further, shrinking from something the size of a bus, until in defiance of scientific law it shrank from sight.

"Well that was different," Xander remarked, dropping his sword and catching a brunette projectile that wrapped herself around him and didn't look like she'd be letting him go any time soon.

Xander rubbed her back and whispered soothing things into her ear as everyone got reacquainted.

Willow had hugged Oz and was talking too fast for anyone, even Xander to translate.

Angel and Riley were glaring at each other while Spike just seemed really amused.

Giles and Wesley were quickly absorbed in rechecking the translation of the prophecy in the tome Wesley still carried.

Buffy started to go check on her sister, since Angel and Riley seemed content to glare at each other for the moment when Tara touched her arm to get her attention.

"She's fine."

"But she's shaking!" Buffy protested.

"It's mostly exaggerated, look at her," Tara ordered softly.

"But," Buffy began before she saw the smile on her sister's face and the way Xander was holding her cradled to his chest as he stroked her back.

Xander called out "Guys I'm taking Dawn out for some ice cream to sooth her nerves before we head home."

Buffy looked like she might object, but Tara squeezed her arm and she calmed down and waved her off as Dawn grabbed Xander's hand and dragged him off toward the nearest ice cream place.

Giles retrieved Xander's dropped sword saying, "Well, we've deciphered the prophecy."

"It was Angel wasn't it?" Buffy asked.

"It sounded more like Oz's presence is what did it," Willow protested, "after all Spike is a vampire and it didn't react to him."

"Spike doesn't have a soul," Buffy pointed out.

"It was neither of them," Giles began only to have both girls interrupt, "It was Wesley?!"

"Let me read the proper translation," Wesley said, "Son of the ever hungry hound 'in a veil of the sun'. Veil as in clothing…"

"Didn't Xander say his shirt was called Taiwanese Sunset?" Angel asked.

"So droopy saved us?" Spike asked looking shocked.

"Well, his shirt did anyway. A Scooby wearing the colors of the sun," Wesley summed up.

"Should we tell him?" Buffy asked.

"Nah, he hates prophecies," Willow decided.

"How long has Xander been dating Dawn?" Buffy asked, surprising everyone but Spike.

"Bit got her claws in him the first Sunday he came back to check on everyone," Spike said with a grin.

"He's been back?!" Buffy and Willow chorused again.

"Yeah, every Sunday and Wednesday he'd only stay for a couple of hours to make sure everything was fine here before heading back to wherever he and Wolfy were staying at, but Little Bit slowly lulled him into a false sense of security and monopolized his time. Joyce has been giving her tips. The last couple of weeks he'd head straight for the shower and as soon as he was out, Dawn would have him twisted around her little finger and taking her out to eat."

"But he's three years older than her!" Buffy complained. Everyone just stared at her until what she'd said finally sunk in. "Ok, big old hypocrite here."

"He doesn't realize they're dating yet," Spike said with a smirk.

"Oh come on!" Willow complained, "How can you not know you're dating someone? I mean, you get together to do things, you go out to eat, you cuddle up and watch movies, you have an emotional connection..." Willow's voice trailed off for a moment. "Tara, are we dating?"

Tara blushed and stuttered out an answer, "Y-yeah, k-kinda."

"Ummmm..." Willow said unable to think of anything to respond with while blushing profusely.

Oz decided to break the awkward silence, "Legally, as her girlfriend, it is now your responsibility to go shopping with her and watch chick flicks."

"I- I can do that," Tara offered with a shy smile that Willow and Oz both felt themselves returning.

"Hey you got cured!" Buffy announced after noticing the full moon and Oz's lack of extra body hair.

"I found control," Oz corrected her, holding up an arm while slowly changing it back and forth.

"What are you?" Riley asked suspiciously.

"A musician," Oz replied seriously, responding with what he considered the most important aspect of himself.

"And all musicians grow claws and hair?"

"Only eighties hair bands and the ones bitten by werewolves," Oz replied, "or had sex with them. Lycanthropy is sexually transmitted."

"So we're all three going to end up furry?" Tara asked as Willow turned bright red, realizing Tara had just admitted her sexual interest in her.

"Yep. So you'll have to do a lot of navel gazing in the next couple of years. So you'll be ready when it happens," Oz explained.

"But it only took you two months!" Willow pointed out.

"Yeah, but it was one of the most difficult things I've ever been through. I don't want you two to have to go through that," Oz said fervently, "and Xander went through the entire thing with me to help."

"So how did you gain control?" Giles asked.

"Xander took me to a shaman and I had to work on it constantly with little sleep for the entire time. That's all I'm allowed to say. I promised to keep the rest secret unless someone else needed help, but enough navel gazing beforehand will avoid having to go through it."

"Thats..." Riley trailed off for a moment, "Good I guess."

"There are advantages to being a werewolf, for instance I can tell who's in a relationship with who, which helps cut down on surprises and I can read emotions almost as well as someone who's an aura reader."

"Reading auras does help me a lot when I want to know if someone is a good person," Tara chimed in.

"Life in Sunnydale is always surprising," Riley said, still a bit shocked from everything he'd learned that night.

"This is nothing. We could probably pile on crazy things until you go insane. The life of a Slayerette is fraught with confusion and peril," Buffy grumbled.

Spike snorted. "You take things far too seriously, Slayer."

"How can you not take saving the world seriously?!" Buffy practically growled.

"Because it isn't really at stake most of the time."

"We go through world ending events at least once a year," Giles pointed out.

"Yeah and I'm not saying you don't, but at the same time I'm saying that even if you failed it wouldn't be the end of the world."

"I think I speak for everyone when I say, huh?" Riley said unintentionally copying one of the absent Xander's favorite lines.

"Listen, do you really believe that all of these end of the world events just happen here? Or that they didn't start until you lot all got here?" Spike asked.

"We do get the occasional report from the Council about events that have occurred that could have quite possibly caused the end of days, stopped by either independents or Council teams so it's not just here and now," Wesley agreed.

"Quite right. I have read of quite a few accounts myself," Giles added.

"Yeah, exactly my point and do you truly believe that with all of this going on around the world that no one has dropped the ball before? Or come up just a bit short in the final accounting?"

Everyone was shocked into silence.

"So we do all this for nothing? All the pain and the deaths..." Buffy trailed off, her eyes looking a little wild.

"No!" Spike glared at her, barely restraining himself from shifting into game face. "It is never for nothing! For some reason, everyone expects life to be sunshine and puppies, but it has never been that way and it never will be. Life has always been joy and pain, evil and good..."

"Chunky and creamy," Giles interrupted before clearing his throat as everyone stared at him. "Sorry, please continue."

Spike snickered and lit a cigarette. "You are not the last line of defense, you're the first. The champions of the powers that be are there to inspire others, because life isn't about winning, it's about the fight."

"So we haven't really saved the world?" Buffy asked, confused.

"If you catch a baby before it falls out a window and it turns out there was someone on a ladder ready to catch him if he fell, does that mean you haven't saved him?" Spike asked.

"Well, no..." Buffy admitted.

"Then there you go. You guys have saved the world, but even if you had failed the world wouldn't have ended. Of course you'd be dead along with all your friends and who knows how many of the walking bloodbags in this city."

"Was there a point to all of this?!" Buffy demanded.

"Yeah, stop thinking it's all about you and how doomed you are because you're the slayer. Every single vampire you meet was someone who has had it worse than you. They fought and they died without any of the perks of being the Slayer. Every last one of them, and more than likely they didn't see it coming or have friends that fought beside them."

"Anything else?" Buffy asked, clearly irritated at being told she didn't deserve any pity for being the Slayer.

"Yeah that blouse doesn't go with those pants at all!" Spike sneered.

Buffy growled, clearly restraining herself from committing violence upon the person who had been protecting her sister from a fate worse than death just a little while ago. Finally she simply stormed off.

Spike turned to Riley. "This is where you go after her, remind her that the walking corpse has no fashion sense and reap the benefits of being her boyfriend. If she says anything about her hiding behind you tonight, just remember it's a trap. Remind her that usually you're behind her and that as your boyfriend it's your job to keep other willies away from her. Compliment her a lot, reassure her that she's a good person and it's just that being the Slayer isn't all that bad, but she couldn't have known that before tonight. Shoo!"

Riley quickly took off after Buffy, leaving everyone else staring at Spike.

"What?" he asked, obviously playing dumb.

"What was all that about?" Giles asked.

"Doing a favor for Joyce. She said Buffy was wound way too tight. Now she'll have angry sex with her boytoy and think about what I've said when she's relaxing and realize I'm right. She's always been a bit tense, but ever since Joyce became a Slayer she's been close to cracking. Joyce asked me to fix the problem, so I did."

"How does pissing off Buffy factor into that?" Angel asked, trying to distract himself from the fact Buffy would be having sex with someone who wasn't him shortly.

"Well I needed to make her actually think about what I said. Best way to make a woman think about something is to piss her off. If I'd just told her, she'd shrug it off as being unimportant. But piss her off and she'll dissect every word I said to figure out every last mistake I made so she can nail me for them later," Spike said smugly.

"And insulting her clothes?" Willow asked.

"Gives her something I'm obviously wrong about so she can feel superior and count it as a win against me. It also lets Captain Cornbread score some points in her playbook. Sex and some deep thoughts and she'll be almost as good as she was before she became the Slayer."

"And you did all of this out of the goodness of your heart?" Wesley enquired skeptically.

"Hell no! I did all this because Joyce asked me to. Let me ask you this, how many people here would willingly disappoint her?"

There came a chorus of agreement from everyone there, not a one of them would willingly disappoint Joyce, much less piss her off and that was before she became a Slayer.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat… actually that's a lie, goodbye."

Everyone watched Spike leave.

"Well at least he hasn't changed any, I was almost worried for a moment there," Giles remarked, idly cleaning his glasses.

"I think I missed something, somewhere..." Oz remarked, wondering why Spike was getting along with everyone "And Joyce is a Slayer?!"


End file.
